June 01, 2006
Happy Birthday, Jonathan Pryce!
One of my favorite moderately obscure actors was born this day in 1947 in Holywell, Wales.
He seems to be doing fairly well at the moment, having got in on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and being otherwise employed in various period and art films. This is good news after his failed Hollywood breakout attempt in the mid-90's. Evita (with Madonna) spun in and nothing much came of his role as the villainous Elliot Carver in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. For a while there, he was reduced to doing Infiniti car commercials for which, he unabashedly said, he was just grateful to get the money.
But I like him primarily for his earlier collaborations with Terry Gilliam in Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. And the more I think of it, the more I see his Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson in the latter movie as a good screen representation of Patrick O'Brian's Stephen Maturin:
Am I not right about this? Huh? He's probably a bit too old now, but if they ever do an Aubrey/Maturin sequel, he'd make an intriguing choice as the Doctor.
He played The Master in the one off charity production of Dr. Who and the Fatal Death. He was great.
Posted by: Ith at June 1, 2006 02:07 PMHe was great in Barbarians at the Gate, also, as Henry Kravitz of KKR.
Too old, too manic, too spirited, too charismatic for Maturin.
what an eerie coincidence. i just got done seeing Munchausen on netflix! that dirty bastard killed the Baron!
Posted by: annika at June 1, 2006 10:27 PM
Image courtesy of the lovely and talented 